Page 2 of Ulune's Daughter

The raven immediately proves me wrong by ignoring the plate as it continues to inspect my porch.

Jane chuckles. “Maybe it has a sweet tooth.”

She cuts a piece of pie, puts it on a plate, and pushes it toward the bird.

“I object to you giving my pie to ungrateful avians,” Carrie says.

We share a laugh. The raven ignores the pie as steadily as the fish. It finds a corner between the couches that’s to its liking and plops down, looking like a large, snowy cushion.

Under the raven’s crimson regard, we go back to our conversation, swapping gossip about the faculty and students, speculating on the sex of Teddy’s unborn baby, and discussing the curriculum of the classes Jane and Carrie are teaching this semester. The moon’s risen and the night’s cooled enough to make me need a cardigan by the time Jane and Carrie say soft goodnights and leave me with the leftover pecan pie.

They don’t disturb the raven, who is sleeping, its red gaze shuttered, as they slip down the back stairs. Since it seems content, I put out a dish of water for it and leave it be. I renew my wards before taking a quick shower and climbing between sheets that still smell of the juniper, pine, and mist of Isla Cedros.

* * *

Bevington’s fallsemester starts with a roar that I largely miss, being sequestered in the college museum. I’m not teaching until Winter Study, but I am assisting Jane with her Necromancy senior seminar. Happily, this means I can avoid both the freshmen orientation days and the introductory class sessions.

I spend my days unpacking, working on the Magi of the Mist exhibit, and courting the albino raven who appears each evening on my back porch. I’ve finally found a few foods that he—and I’m only assuming the bird is a he because I haven’t braved that powerful beak to look—deigns to eat. He’s partial to boiled eggs, blueberries, and peanut butter. He’s happy to sit with me on the porch, as long as I don’t try to pet him. I’ve put a pillow in the spot between the couches that he favors. He sits and preens his beautiful, snowy feathers, while I read as each sunny day fades to twilight. He’s unbothered by Carrie and Jane but the night I have Dean Quinn and her two partners over for dinner, he doesn’t appear.

The next night, as I’m sitting on the porch couch, writing out notes for the first seminar class I’m leading, he flutters onto the porch and drops a stone near my sandal before stalking over to his dish for a feast of boiled egg and berries.

I pick up the stone and turn it over in my hand.

It’s a quartz lozenge about the length of my palm. One side is sparkly, which is probably what attracted the raven, since I’ve read up on them now and understand they’re attracted to bright objects. The other side is dull and deeply scratched.

I run my thumb over the scratches. They’re regular and geometric. Several distinct shapes.

Like runes.

I take out my phone, snap a picture, and email it to Jane and Carrie.

Present from the raven.

Carrie responds first. With the titles of two Arcana on first century runes. I laugh, reading her response. I’d expect nothing less. Bevington is doubly-blessed to have Carrie and Jane teaching here.

I’m blessed by their friendship.

* * *

I’m feeling somewhat less blessedthe next day, sitting in an extremely stuffy classroom in Old Chapel, as Jane introduces me to the eleven students in her Advanced Necromancy senior seminar. I twirl my finger around on the desk, swirling a little breeze through the room, and lift my braid off the back of my neck. The breeze doesn’t disperse the smell of formaldehyde, or the odor of dead things the formaldehyde doesn’t cover, from the six, iron-bound coffins in the center of the room.

Luckily, none of the things sleeping in those coffins will be making an appearance today.

Once the eleven students have introduced themselves, I stand and move to the white board. I go quickly through the basic quiet dead, undead, and restless dead wards. These are advanced students, so they shouldn’t need too much review. When I get to vampire wards, I slow down and talk them through each element of the ward, taking questions and repeating anything they seem uncertain on.

The ninety-minute class is nearly up when one of the students, a blond man dressed all in black, his long body slumped in his chair, pins me with his white eyes and raises his hand.

I’ve met a lot of people, in a lot of different places, but Benighted Mother, his eyes are creepy.

“Yes, sorry, remind me of your name?” Despite his creepy eyes, his name didn’t stick during the introductions.

“Luca,” he says, his voice carrying a deep resonance that my Air-magic immediately picks up on. Either he’s an Air-mage himself or he has something in his blood that isn’t human. “I’m curious why you don’t use cat blood for the Water aspect of the ward?”

“If I were trying to call the vampire instead of keep it out, I’d consider using blood as part of the ward,” I respond. “Where I’m creating a haven against vampiric intrusion, I want the purity of blessed water. I’m curious why youwoulduse cat blood?”

“Cats are the natural predators of rats, vermin with which vampires share harmonic sympathy. If anything repels a predator, it’s the smell of a stronger predator. Cat blood enhances the ward with an olfactory aspect as well as satisfying the Water aspect. Blessed water doesn’t.”

He’s right, and there’s an elegance to his reasoning.

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